


All In

by Destina



Category: Tombstone (1993)
Genre: M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2019-01-04 17:32:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12173523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Destina/pseuds/Destina
Summary: Wyatt had told himself more than once that what he felt for Doc was friendship, pure and simple. Looking at him there, naked as a jaybird, he stopped pretending either of those conditions was true.





	All In

After Doc shot Ringo, the killing went on for two more weeks, and Doc was right at Wyatt's side for all of it, every brothel and dingy saloon, every hole in the wall and campsite. They did what they'd set out to do, and Wyatt tried to shove down the fierce protective fear that surfaced every time Doc braced himself on his horse, or when he traded up from tea to whiskey every morning. They had work to do; Doc knew what it meant when he signed on, and they were nearing the end of it. 

They were back near Hooker's ranch when Doc's strength failed him. 

"I'm takin' you to that sanatorium up in Colorado," Wyatt told him, exasperated, while Doc was a limp weight in his arms, blood spatters on his chin, every breath in and out a torture against his lungs. Around them, the horses whinnied and stamped, unsettled; they scented death on the air, no matter how hard Doc shoved it away. 

Doc just fixed him with a look, and when he spoke, his voice was strong. 

"Wyatt, you are takin' me exactly nowhere, and you know it. I thought we settled this."

So they had; what Wyatt owed Doc, he owed him ten times over. His life, and maybe the lives of his living brothers, besides. That's how they came to hole up in a two-room cabin on Hooker's ranch for a few days' rest, because despite all Doc's protests to the contrary, he was too weak to ride. Wyatt sent the boys on ahead so the trail of their last target wouldn't get cold - told them to shine up those badges and then shoot dead any sons of bitches they run across, as they saw fit - and settled Doc into the cabin's one bed. 

"I'm grateful to you," he told Hooker, who only waved away Wyatt's offer of coin and sent his cook around to wash the linens and stir up some soup in a big black cast iron pot, along with skillet bread in a cast-iron pan, nestled in the hearth-ash. 

"Stay as long as you need," Hooker said, his knowing eyes on Doc. "Nobody will know you're on my property; my boys will make sure of it." 

As attractive as that sounded, Wyatt had learned the hard way to trust no one but himself and those who'd proven themselves. So he dropped the bar on the door when it was time to sleep, and put his shotgun within reach of both Doc and himself at all times. 

The first night it rained so hard it rattled the walls, and Doc buried his face in the pillow, trying to contain his coughing. Wyatt stood at the doorway and watched, helpless to cure his friend of what ailed him. Doc's condition was poorly, had to be, because Doc wasn't even complaining about the lack of fine meals, or that they weren't at a fancy hotel. It was the strangest thing Wyatt had ever seen; Doc adjusted just fine on the trail, sleeping on the hard ground downright peaceful when his cough would leave him be. It made him think a whole lot of Doc's affection for the finer things in life was a pretense. 

Not that it would surprise him. Doc was full of contradictions. Finding those out had been half the joy of knowing him.

"You're hoverin' there like some dark angel, full of wrath and vengeance, destined to steal my soul." Doc's voice was a rasp, too soft under the thunder. 

"Not sure you've got too much soul left to be worth digging around for," Wyatt answered. That got a smile out of Doc. In the lantern-light, Doc's deathly pallor was softened; he looked too young, and tired as hell, but less likely to rush into the underworld. 

"Now that, sir, is the absolute truth. Nevertheless, I find I do not miss it." Doc's eyes glittered in the low light. "Would you mind tellin' me why you have abandoned the hunt to those fine deputies, Turkey Creek and Jack?"

"We've done our work pretty damn well up til now." Wyatt pulled a chair up alongside the bed and eased into it. "One left, and he'll keep 'til we get to 'im."

"I prefer a version of events where we get back on our horses in the mornin' and catch up to our compatriots."

"Even though you're as stubborn as a damned mule, that ain't happening." 

"Damn you, Wyatt, I never asked you to play nursemaid. I haven't-" Doc broke off coughing, one long wheezing retch. 

"You want to finish yourself off, do it on your own time," Wyatt said. "I need you well and ready, and that means rest by god." Wyatt picked up Doc's one remaining clean handkerchief from the table and pressed it into Doc's hand. "Now, do you want some laudanum to ease the way to sleep? I've got that bottle in my saddlebag I picked up for Mattie."

"I must regretfully decline. Laudanum has its virtues to be sure, but it clouds the mind and dulls the senses, and that I cannot afford. Must keep my wits about me, given the number of craven churls who seem set on shootin' me in the head." Doc fixed Wyatt with a long look. "You plannin' on deliverin' that bottle when we're through here?"

It was the way he said it - _when we're through here_ \- that raised a strange shiver up Wyatt's spine. He hesitated, because he knew the answer to the question that Doc had asked, but was less sure about the things he thought they might be fixin' to ask each other soon. 

"Don't see much point," Wyatt said. "Guess you and I both know where that's headed. She's a good girl, it's not her fault." 

"It's never their fault," Doc said. "They are afflicted with ne'er-do-wells, and while they appeal to our better nature, they never quite manage to break through permanently." Doc's eyes narrowed, and Wyatt had that peculiar sensation of being seen too keenly. "Except when they do, of course; nothing is absolute."

"Leavin' one don't mean gallopin' toward the other," Wyatt answered. "I've made peace with it."

"I fear you underestimate your heart, but I'll leave it be. For the moment." 

"Can we leave off talkin' about hearts?" Wyatt asked irritably. 

Doc rolled all the way to his back and sighed. "Only if you have a cheroot to share in lieu of polite conversation."

As it happened, Wyatt had several, and though he knew it would aggravate Doc's condition, he wasn't inclined to mother him. So he lit one up, and they passed the cheroot back and forth, basking in the sweet smoky haze around them. It was this kind of companionable silence Wyatt had looked for his whole life, in all the people he'd surrounded himself with by choice, as opposed to those he had to endure. It struck Wyatt as powerful strange he should prefer Doc's company to his wife, or even his brothers, but that was the truth. 

When Doc's features slackened, and he dropped off to a fitful sleep, Wyatt dared to put the back of his hand against Doc's face, and then to cup his cheek. His skin still blazed hot with the fever inside him, but not as bad as when they'd arrived that morning. 

Hooker's voice rang in his head: _I've seen this before, son. It's days or weeks, not months or years, and it's not going to matter how much he sleeps in between. Might as well let him ride._

But Wyatt wanted the outside prediction; it was something he could control, up to a point, and so they stayed, with the rain drowning the world outside. 

**

Mornings did not seem to be Doc's best time of day. 

"Stop goddamned hovering, I can manage!" Doc's glare had lost a little of its icy intention, but his tone was clear. Wyatt raised his hands and backed away, leaving Doc in his frilly nightshirt to hobble to the porch with a bucket of water warmed from the fire, and a clean towel. It didn't stop him from going to the window, though, mostly to be sure no one shot Doc during his ablutions. 

When he pulled the nightshirt over his head in the murky half-light of the stormy day, Wyatt didn't look away. Doc was thinner - no question, he was being eaten up from within - but still rangy and muscled, a body made for schoolrooms and libraries, and remade on the plains. 

Wyatt had told himself more than once that what he felt for Doc was friendship, pure and simple. Looking at him there, naked as a jaybird, he stopped pretending either of those conditions was true. 

He busied himself dishing up two bowls of soup and two helpings of cornbread, and set them on the hearth to keep warm. But when Doc walked back in, shirt slung over one shoulder, towel over the other, he looked up and kept looking. 

Doc closed the door behind him and arched a brow. "Am I to be left standing here without my dignity, without even a change of clothes?"

"I thought you wanted me to quit hovering," Wyatt pointed out, taking a bite of bread, while Doc pressed his lips together and stormed on by, back into the bedroom. 

"You are entirely unhelpful, for a nursemaid," Doc called, which provoked a smile from Wyatt, even as he winced to hear Doc coughing again. 

"Get out here and eat breakfast, once you find your clothes." Wyatt sat in the plain hardback chair, bowl in hand, bread on knee, and tucked in to his meal. He was near finished by the time Doc emerged, dressed as casually as Wyatt had ever seen him, sleeping attire aside: an open-collared shirt in the French style, a pair of trousers, and bare feet. No guns, but Wyatt was sure he had at least one slender knife concealed in the high waistband of his trousers. He took the upholstered chair, without commenting on how Wyatt had left it for him, and began to eat his soup. 

"You're sounding better today," Wyatt said, cracking open their unspoken pact about never discussing what ailed Doc. 

"Yes, well, I assure you that is a temporary respite. Consumption comes as it pleases and takes what it wants. Not unlike certain lawmen of my acquaintance."

Wyatt snorted. "You just compare me to an affliction?"

"Lawmen are ubiquitous throughout these western territories, whether they are welcomed or not. I maintain the comparison is apt." 

"Lawmen are necessary, Doc, and you know it."

"Perhaps then you are the cure for what ails society, whilst cures are in short supply for these other physical maladies." 

"I like that comparison better."

"You would." Doc finished his soup - which meant he drank a few sips, and then left the rest - and leaned down to set the bowl on the hearth. "Tell me, Wyatt, what do you have planned in the way of amusements today?"

"Not a damn thing. I'm going to go cut some wood for Hooker, maybe set up some fence posts to make us square. You're going to stay right here."

"Wyatt." Now Doc was quiet, and Wyatt knew from experience, the quieter he got, the more dangerous he was apt to be feeling. "I was not built to stay in one place, particularly now. Get your things and let's ride."

"No can do." 

"Your plan then is to leave me here, without so much as a poker companion or libations to occupy the hours?"

"There's tea in the jar on the mantel, and books in the bedroom," Wyatt said. "And your horse is outside, if the silence becomes too much for you."

"Contrary, unfortunate man," Doc muttered, turning his face away. 

Wyatt set his hat on and adjusted it. "I'll be back at sundown with dinner."

"Pray do not bring anything that needs killing, skinning or dissecting; my delicate sensibilities won't stand it," Doc said wryly. 

"All right, all right," Wyatt said with a chuckle. 

**

Wyatt returned to the cabin just past dark, with steak and two pieces of blackberry pie wrapped up in his saddlebag. He half expected Doc to be gone, as no one could keep Doc Holliday anywhere he did not want to be. But there was a fire burning, and lanterns in the windows, and Doc beside the fire, holding a three-quarters-read book in his hands. 

"Evenin', Doc," Wyatt said, as he slung his saddlebags onto the small table. 

"Good evening, Wyatt." Doc closed the book and set it aside, and looked Wyatt over with twinkling eyes. "At least, I presume it's you, underneath all that grime and dust."

"Never knew you to be so particular about cleanliness."

"Never knew you to be so unobservant." Doc pointed toward the hearth. "There's warm water over there. Please behave like a gentleman and shave off an inch or two of dirt."

Wyatt's lip twitched with his smile, but he complied with the request. One item of clothing at a time, starting with his pistol belt, he stripped off, down to skivvies. All the while Doc smoked a slim cigarette and watched him. It was like a game between them, and Doc was never one to back down from a dare. Nor was Wyatt, who picked up the bucket and took it outside to upend it over his head. He used his hands to scrub his body, and knew without looking that Doc was at the window, returning the favor from the day before. It was oddly freeing, the sensation of being seen so clearly. 

Everything outside still smelled wet and green, but the sky was clearing, and the moon sat fat above the horizon. Wyatt slicked his wet hair back and stared at it for a moment, until passing clouds dimmed it to grey. 

When he went back inside, Doc handed him a pair of trousers, then turned without a word and went back to his chair. Wyatt skinned on the trousers and kicked his dirty clothes into the corner. 

"You partial to pie, Doc?" 

"I'm partial to many things," Doc answered, as he put out his cigarette against the stone fireplace. "I'm a man of refined appetites." 

Wyatt stilled, one hand on the saddlebag. "And to think there was a time I thought you weren't plainspoken," he said. "Guess I just didn't know you well enough then to get past that flowery language."

"And now?"

"Now I'm in the mood for pie." 

Doc's lip twitched up, and he stood to take the steak from Wyatt while Wyatt unearthed the slightly flattened pie. He nestled their cast-iron skillet in the fire and tossed the steak in, and ten minutes later, they had steak and coffee, washed down with pie. It was more domestic than he was used to, and Doc as well, he'd have wagered. Mattie had barely cooked for him in months, and Doc was well-known to take all his meals in hotel restaurants.

After, Wyatt rinsed the plates and forks in a pan of water and set them back on the hearth to dry. Doc pulled his book back into his lap; his fingers traced over the embossed crimson cover, but he didn't open to his last page. 

"Do you suppose that we are men whose deeds will keep us out of heaven?" Doc asked, looking into the fire. "It's a question I've been contemplating, of late."

"Never thought too much about it. If the good Lord had a plan for me in particular, I reckon that went off the rails a hell of a long time ago." 

"Mortality doesn't weigh on you, then," Doc said. "Funny, given how we spend our days. And yet you don't live your life entirely as you choose."

"Obligations," Wyatts said, making a mental list of those even as he said it. "Responsibilities."

"Your own, or others?" Wyatt frowned, and Doc added, "You've never seemed capable of walking away from a fight."

"Neither have you." Wyatt looked Doc over; he was so still in the chair that he might be a statue. "You've lived your life as you choose, you tell me if it's the best way."

"To a point. None of us can do exactly as we please. For instance, I would like to live another twenty years, but that seems highly unlikely. And there are other things I might want in the short term, but...those are out of reach."

"Kate?" Wyatt asked. 

Doc smiled a smile that didn't reach anywhere near his eyes. "That sojourn has come to a merciful end." 

In the short term, Doc said. Wyatt was acutely aware that the short term was all there would ever be for him, now. His practice, such as it had been, was gone; the gaming had been a diversion meant to distract from pain and loneliness. Not that Doc would say such a thing, but Wyatt was starting to grasp the truth of his friend now. Kate had been sent away, probably to spare her what was to come. The same reason Doc had tried to send Wyatt away; the same reason he wanted to keep riding until the trail came to an end. 

There would be no stopping the clock for Doc. 

"Have you ever seen a magnolia tree in flower?" Doc asked. When Wyatt shook his head, Doc said, "The tree itself is hardy, the flowers delicate. They're quite beautiful in form, until they begin to wither and turn in on themselves. It never takes very long, and it can be hard to remember what they were, how they lived, before they began to die." He looked up at Wyatt. "I would rather crush such a flower while it's still alive in order to avoid that situation. Do you understand me?"

Wyatt was never good at such talk, but his heart was beginning to hurt at the idea of leaving this cabin, of shaving off hours and days from a life so fragile. "Most men don't have the luxury of dying in bed," he said softly, prepared for Doc's snort. 

"A luxury, you say. Well, a curse and a fate to be avoided, I say. I want to ride, Wyatt, I want to ride and keep killing until your brother is fully avenged, and then I want to find some other way to die that isn't a luxury. I will not burn up from within while it's in my power to do otherwise." He dropped the book on the floor; the crack of its landing was loud in their small space. "Don't strip it from me with well-meaning intention."

Wyatt bowed his head for a moment, and then met Doc's eyes. "I can't say I'd feel any different, but I'm on this side of it, and it's damned hard to watch."

"We all must carry our crosses," Doc said. "Mine is my inability to walk away from you, no matter how troublesome your cause may be." He smiled. "Lawman." 

With a small shake of his head, Wyatt answered, "Degenerate gambler."

"How well you know me," Doc said, "but I am saddened that you neglected to include unrepentant killer and cheat."

"Tell me you never lost sleep about a man you put a bullet into, and I'll call you a damned liar," Wyatt said. "Cheat, I'll give you."

"Generous to a fault." They smiled at each other, and Wyatt's heart gave a painful twist in his chest. He wasn't a sentimental man, but there were some moments in life that had the making of life-long, unspoken regrets, and this was one such. 

As if Doc could read his mind, he stood and stretched, graceful in his movements. His cough was quieter than it had been in all the long weeks of the hunt, and the high flush of fever was off his cheeks. "Bar the door and come to bed, Wyatt," he said, "unless we are going to pretend that such a thing is not at the forefront of either of our minds." 

There was a twisting, sparking desire low in Wyatt's belly, and he stood slowly, weighing it. Not like he'd never lain with a man before; he'd been among cowboys, drovers and miners his whole adult life, and a man had needs. But he had reserved intimacies like this for his women, and had never contemplated what it might mean to forsake that, even for one night. 

"If you continue starin' at me in that particular way, I warn you, I might begin to suspect I am not the only deep thinker in this room," Doc said. His tone was light, but there was a curiosity in his eyes, and a flicker of worry. 

Wyatt crossed the small room - seven steps - to place the bar on the door and draw the calico curtains. Doc's footsteps behind him receded into the bedroom, where the smaller fire burned bright. 

It only took him a few seconds to follow. 

Doc was already in bed, his shirt an ivory puddle on the floor, his trousers draped neatly across the iron bedstead. Wyatt set his trousers beside them, and sat down on the other side of the bed. 

"So you are a man who prefers activities above the sheets," Doc said. "The things one discovers at a time like this."

"You plannin' to keep talkin' the entire time?"

"Not unless you find some advantage to it." Doc pushed back the sheet, got out of bed, and walked around it with that slow swagger of his, and when he was in front of Wyatt, he moved as if to kneel. But Wyatt was quicker; he caught Doc's arm, and stood, and then they were flush together, toe to shoulder, both their pricks hard and eager. 

Doc's lips parted, because he wouldn't be Doc if he didn't have some last thing to say, but Wyatt kissed the words right off his stubborn mouth, and the silence was just right. 

In those few hours between that kiss, and sunrise, they learned a good deal about each other, and not in the ways they had before. Wyatt found that Doc would laugh out loud each and every time Wyatt's moustache ghosted over his left ribs, and the laughter would bring on a cough; Wyatt liked to put his hand over Doc's chest and wait for it to quiet under his touch. He also liked to rest his hand in the small of Doc's back when they moved together toward completion, to press him close, and to feel his muscles sleek under his skin, strong and vital. 

He found that Doc would wait for him to open his eyes when his body was straining and struggling toward one more climax; he had never known the stomach-dropping rush of want that accompanied finding Doc's eyes fixed on his, gleaming with triumph. And he learned that he was not immune to tenderness, when it was freely offered. Doc's fingers loosely tangled with his own in the moments before Doc fell to sleep made Wyatt slip closer on their soiled sheets to press his mouth against the smooth skin of Doc's back, salt-sweet beneath his tongue. 

There were one or two things Wyatt had never done before in bed, and would never do again in his long life, but their memory would be a delight, and their absence a regret. 

He dozed off toward dawn and woke to the smell of fresh coffee and the clattering of tin cups. Doc appeared in the doorway, dressed and ready, holsters on, pistols likely loaded for bear. 

"Good morning, Wyatt," he said with what might have been a smirk on anyone else; on Doc, it was fond affection. 

"Mornin' Doc." Wyatt sat up in the bed and shoved his hair out of his face. 

"I feel obliged to tell you, I feel fully rested." Doc leaned forward a fraction of an inch, and added, "Fully." 

Wyatt couldn't help his grin; he tried, but it was spreading along his face anyway. 

"Please put on some trousers and retrieve your coffee. I believe we have a busy day on the trail ahead of us."

"So you feel fit to ride?" Wyatt asked, looking him over. He liked what he saw. He always would, and he would tuck that tiny secret down beneath his breastbone, kept for future remembrance. 

"I like to finish what I start." Doc turned his attention back to breakfast - Wyatt shuddered to think what he might have done to the coffee - while Wyatt dressed. 

Hazy sunshine filtered through the curtains as Wyatt turned to face the day. No more running out the clock, for either of them. Time to get back to work.


End file.
